Had an idea for a fantasy game mechanic this morning that I thought I'd share! If this is cool to you, go ahead and use it as a hack, or codify it in the rules of your game. Message me if this happens, I'd be really into seeing how this works at a table or in a bigger set of rules!

Mechanical Epithets and Sobriquets
Epithets as in like "John Heroman, the lonesome tree, hero of five forks, skull crusher" are a really fun thing from fantasy (and real life) that tell us about the deeds of characters without having to get the whole story. They paint broad strokes about a person and give us a vibe, but leave the actual details of their deeds up to the imagination.

Kinda like the best TTRPG character backstories. 👀

So a couple of assumptions to make this microhack work:

The Characters are Already Known Heroes
We aren't writing the story of their lives before the game starts
We want to discover what (at least some of) our character's abilities are during play
After you've got the basics of your character sorted out, take a minute to come up with (or pick from a pregenerated list) a handful of sobriquets that feel right for your character. I'd say somewhere in the area of 2-4 feels right, with more established adventurers having more epithets.

They should all be vague and evocative, and paint right up to the edges of what you have already established about the world. Name drop battles and gods that haven't been established, give your character stories that are part of their legend but that don't yet make sense to you.

And then, during play, have characters use them. Player characters, NPC's, gods, bosses, random goblins. Make your epithets into threats "You dare defy the The Evening Rook!?" or appeals to your authority "Do it not for a stranger, but in the name of the Leyfinder". Establish how people feel about those epithets, which ones they love you for, and which they fear or hate you for. Know what your character feels about each of these epithets, and start to know in your heart how they got them.

Then, when it's mechanically and or narratively appropriate, declare to the table that you're using your epithet to gain a new ability. Tell the story of how you earned the title to the rest of the table (you should already know how people feel about the title, which ought to make this easier), and write a new ability based on how you earned the title.

Don't worry too much about being good at ability writing, just tell the table what you want to be able to do, and people will help you come up with something that feels right. And if you find that your ability or someone else's isn't working down the line, is taking some of the fun out of the game, or anything like that, just have a conversation about it. You're (probably) an adult, and if the people you are playing with are friends, or at bare minimum decent people, they will understand and try to help fix the problem.

After the readmore I'm gonna write like 20 of these so that the post comes with a picklist/roll table to get you started. Happy adventuring ttrpg nerds!

Oakenheart
Venomistress
Unburnt
Night Thunder
The Seamstress' Eye
Wicked Arrow
Goldentongue
Velvet Hammer
Unshaken
Gxlrick's Bane
Wolf Eared
Sorrowfont
Crystal Keeper
Lowport's Vengeance
Mother of Asps
Godslayer
Nimblehand
Chosen of Seriha
The Clipped Wing
Doomspeaker
I'd love to see any epithets/titles/sobriquets that people come up with for this, maybe in the comments? Have fun!!!